Losses in the streaming business: Disney’s availability in movies and series

The American Disney group is still incurring hundreds of millions of losses with its competing show, Netflix. Therefore, less money should be pouring into your TV production – especially since the reviews have been bad lately.

American actor Samuel L. Jackson plays veteran agent Nick Fury in the latest series of the Marvel Secret Invasion series. Streaming provider Disney+ has created its own series for the comic character. But it mostly fell out with critics and fans. Rotten Tomatoes ranks it as the worst Marvel show to ever stream on Disney+.

Disney has poured millions into developing exclusive shows from the Star Wars and Marvel universes in recent years. “Loki”, “WandaVision”, “MoonKnight” or “Hawkeye” were created for the Marvel brand alone – all stories about more or less well-known Marvel superheroes.

Dilute focus and attention

Perhaps the excitement was a little too high, Disney president Bob Iger said in an interview with CNBC. “Marvel has never been this big on TV, not only have there been a lot of movies, but there’s been a lot of new shows as well. It’s honestly relaxed focus and attention.”

This has consequences for the Star Wars and Marvel brands. Egger announced that they would produce less soon and spend less money on it.

Prices are going up

This measure is intended to compensate for the huge losses of the Disney + streaming platform. Last year, the platform lost more than $1 billion. After all, Disney managed to cut its losses nearly in half last quarter. Despite this, the model is still not profitable.

“Disney has poured billions into streaming, and Disney wants to change that by raising prices and giving consumers an alternative subscription with ads,” said CBS entertainment correspondent Alex Webrin. “It’s cheaper, but the company can make up for that with advertising.”

Shrink media library

Soon, the ad-free version of Disney+ will cost $13.99 per month in the US, double what it was when it launched in November 2019. The company also wants to take tougher action against password sharing. Disney is using a similar strategy to Netflix: the competitor has also increased its prices and wants to prevent account sharing between multiple households.

Another savings measure in Disney +: dozens of less popular movies and series have been removed from the platform, for example to save on licensing costs. However, this also reduces the Disney+ media library.

So far, that didn’t mean customers had turned their backs on Disney+, Weprin says: “Very few people quit — but companies are starting to worry a little more, because at some point people won’t pay for four or five platforms anymore. Like two or three.”

Profit rather than growth is the motto

Considering how new the Mickey Mouse collection streaming service is, it has been able to gain many subscribers in a short time. There are now 106 million. Although Netflix has more than twice that number, they’ve been in the streaming business for much longer.

Disney is now in third place behind Amazon Prime Video. Wall Street has always rewarded growth, but times have changed, says CNN media journalist Frank Pallotta. It is now not so much about rapid growth as it is about profit.

According to CEO Iger, Disney+ could be in the black by 2024 at the earliest — the longtime Disney boss was actually on the verge of retirement and may have been reinstated as managing director of Disney due to the crisis. Perhaps this is also a strategy to stabilize the swinging giant. Disney also laid off about 7,000 employees earlier this year.

An actor’s strike may increase costs

Disney’s problem now is screenwriters and actors strikes. The demands of the two unions representing the filmmakers are primarily about streaming platforms: they want more salaries and higher revenues, for example if series or movies are shown multiple times.

It would increase expenses. Egger has called the demands “unrealistic” and “unmodern”. When the current quarterly numbers were announced, backtrack a bit: For Disney, nothing is more important than “relationships with the creative community.” Because: The longer the strike lasts, the more shows and movies production will be delayed — and that, too, could cost the company millions again.